Merging scleractinian genera: the overwhelming genetic similarity between solitary Desmophyllum and colonial Lophelia
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| Date | 2016-05 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Language | English | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Author(s) | Addamo Anna Maria1, Vertino Agostina2, 3, Stolarski Jaroslaw4, Garcia-Jimenez Ricardo1, Taviani Marco5, 6, 7, Machordom Annie1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Affiliation(s) | 1 : CSIC, Museo Nacl Ciencias Nat, Dept Biodiversidad & Biol Evolut, Jose Gutierrez Abascal 2, E-28006 Madrid, Spain. 2 : Univ Milano Bicocca UNIMIB, Dipartimento Sci Ambiente & Terr & Sci Terra, Piazza Sci 4, I-20126 Milan, Italy. 3 : Univ Ghent, Dept Geol, Renard Ctr Marine Geol, Krijgslaan 281, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium. 4 : Polskiej Akad Nauk, Inst Paleobiol, Twarda 51-55, PL-00818 Warsaw, Poland. 5 : CNR, Ist Sci Marine ISMAR, Via Gobetti 101, I-40129 Bologna, Italy. 6 : Woods Hole Oceanog Inst, Dept Biol, 266 Woods Hole Rd, Woods Hole, MA 02543 USA. 7 : Stn Zool Anton Dohrn, I-80121 Naples, Italy. |
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| Source | Bmc Evolutionary Biology (1471-2148) (Biomed Central Ltd), 2016-05 , Vol. 16 , P. - | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| DOI | 10.1186/s12862-016-0654-8 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| WOS© Times Cited | 112 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Keyword(s) | Mitochondrial genome, Microsatellites, Genetic divergence, Skeletal plasticity, Desmophyllum dianthus, Lophelia pertusa | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | BackgroundIn recent years, several types of molecular markers and new microscale skeletal characters have shown potential as powerful tools for phylogenetic reconstructions and higher-level taxonomy of scleractinian corals. Nonetheless, discrimination of closely related taxa is still highly controversial in scleractinian coral research. Here we used newly sequenced complete mitochondrial genomes and 30 microsatellites to define the genetic divergence between two closely related azooxanthellate taxa of the family Caryophylliidae: solitary Desmophyllum dianthus and colonial Lophelia pertusa. ResultsIn the mitochondrial control region, an astonishing 99.8 % of nucleotides between L. pertusa and D. dianthus were identical. Variability of the mitochondrial genomes of the two species is represented by only 12 non-synonymous out of 19 total nucleotide substitutions. Microsatellite sequence (37 loci) analysis of L. pertusa and D. dianthus showed genetic similarity is about 97 %. Our results also indicated that L. pertusa and D. dianthus show high skeletal plasticity in corallum shape and similarity in skeletal ontogeny, micromorphological (septal and wall granulations) and microstructural characters (arrangement of rapid accretion deposits, thickening deposits). ConclusionsMolecularly and morphologically, the solitary Desmophyllum and the dendroid Lophelia appear to be significantly more similar to each other than other unambiguous coral genera analysed to date. This consequently leads to ascribe both taxa under the generic name Desmophyllum (priority by date of publication). Findings of this study demonstrate that coloniality may not be a robust taxonomic character in scleractinian corals. |
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